Voting to uphold the law in its entirety were Judges Joel M. Flaum and William J. Bauer. Flaum wrote the opinion.

Judge David F. Hamilton dissented in part, saying he believed part of the collective bargaining law violated the First Amendment. Hamilton argued the state could not bar some unions from having their dues deducted from paychecks while it allowed police and fire unions to do so.

AND: The panel said it's well-settled that "use of the state’s payroll systems to collect union dues is a state subsidy of speech that requires only viewpoint neutrality." The law didn't target any particular viewpoints. It subsidized the speech of public safety unions but not other public employee unions, and the unions had argued that the speech of the groups that were subsidized would be more favorable to the party that supported the legislation and so Act 10 wasn't genuinely viewpoint neutral, but only the dissenting judge agreed.

The judges were swayed by the catchy "Stand With" tune. Couldn't get it out of their heads during oral argument and didn't hear a word from union's counsel. In the end, they were compelled to Stand With Governor Walker.

Predictably, the 7th Circuit got this correct, particularly the portion on the Unions' First Amendment claims. The automatic payroll deduction, the court says is a subsidy of the Unions' speech (and even that is giving a broad definition of speech), so removing that subsidy is not equivalent to erecting a barrier to it.

I note that Barca's claim that the court found that the law was designed to punish the Governor's opponents is also misleading at best. The court noted that some of the unions that were not restricted by Act 10 supported the Governor, but many did not.

The Republican-appointed Judge Joel Flaum notes in the decision that 'the United States Constitution does not forbid all legislation that rewards friends and punishes opponents.'"

If this were not the case, there would be virtually no legislation passed.

No Obamacare. No GM Bankruptcy shenanigans. Kinda makes one think...

Maybe there's a reason that some folks want a smaller government. We know there's a reason why interest groups pay so much to lobby and influence Congress: It's totally worth it. We just need to make it not worth it.

And yes, I'm quite aware that Republicans in Congress are less than noble in this regard.

"The net effect is that all public employees represented by unions that endorsed Governor Walker continue to enjoy collective bargaining … On the other hand, nearly all members of the public employee unions that did not endorse Governor Walker are categorized general employees. Their bargaining rights have been reduced to a hollow shell..."

Yes, the dissent says that. It is still not a complete description of what occurred, and its omissions make it misleading.

All you'd need to do is add "many of the "public safety unions" did not endorse Governor Walker, and still retain their former bargaining rights. "Non public safety unions" can still bargain over their wages, but no longer bargain over other matters, including work rules, etc."

Patrick said: We know there's a reason why interest groups pay so much to lobby and influence Congress: It's totally worth it. We just need to make it not worth it.

True.

And that's also why more minimal government removes civil rights problems and reduces non-fiscal interest group lobbying (by which I mean, lobbying by groups that aren't merely rent-seeking; that want an ideological rather than fiscal payout).

If the State can't ban or require something, and has no gravy to ladle out on your pet project, and no power to oppress your members - what do you need to lobby it for?

The one thing that encourages the State to be corrupt most centrally, is the power of the State - if the State doesn't control X, people interested in X, in either direction, have nothing to gain or lose by lobbying or not lobbying.

The State could easily avoid such a suit by stopping doing that without a lawsuit.

So one must then ask why you seem to have decided that whatever we have now is correct and wrong to sue over, rather than wrong, and thus the state should preemptively fix it to avoid the expense... if, after all, the problem is the cost of litigating the question.

Garage must be particularly sweating. Even the partially-dissenting judge, Hamilton, expressly concedes that the state could strip ALL unions from state dues deducting. The ONLY part of the law that Hamilton took issue with was the fact that it separated public-safety unions (which still get state help in deducting) and all other unions (which don't).

Shorter version: all three judges agreed that it's constitutional for a state to bar governmental dues-collection for ALL of its unions.

Actually, they can. But base wages are ALL they can collectively bargain on.

From the beginning of linked opinion, which you of course didn't read: "Among other things,the Act prohibited general employees from collectivelybargaining on issues other than “base wages" ... . (Slip op. at 2.)

But Garage, you should have known this anyway. Only a few state PEU-represented employees are getting huge base salaries. What was killing the budget were the non-salary benefits, work rules, etc., etc.

You either have a convenient memory, forgot to type a "not" or are a horrible liar.

As for taking on police and fire fighters: divide and conquer, boys. Divide and conquer. Police and fire fighter unions need to go, too.

Personally, I was a little curious to see a possible follow-up, if it had been ruled that it was illegal to treat police differently from teachers. Specifically, a challenge to laws allowing police to carry weapons other people can't.

Watching people leap to explain why, oh no, it is totally ok to give police special rights SOME of the time? That would have been great.